Airplane Rides (6 page)

“They are so close with Dean’s parents, I could never take them
away even if I was allowed to.”

Lindsay told me she loved Brian and that it was different than
anything she had ever felt.

“I can’t even imagine being with another man.”

“No offense, but I can’t imagine you not.”

She also claimed to feel liberated from the inconsequential,
bearing the weight of only those efforts for which she still had enthusiasm,
her children and her job.  As true as this may have been, Dean however did
trouble her.  He refused to let go and made frequent pleas to return to his
status as the rejected live in husband. The weekend with Brian had been her
first acknowledged excursion, and no one seemed to be taking it very well, not
Dean, not Dean’s parents, not even her two daughters who were with their father
for the weekend.

“I hope you’re happy Lindsay, because I can tell you that
nobody else is,” said her mother-in-law in a phone call the Thursday before.

“In many respects your story sounds like it should be told by a
man.”

“I’ve been told that before,” she replied.

“Do you find that interesting?”

“I don’t, but I can see why others might, only because people
don’t think of women as serial cheaters.  Men are more acceptably fit into that
particular box, the dogs that they are.”

“So you are the ultimate in progressive feminine behavior?”

“That would be exciting, but the truth is that I’ve been trying
to get away from Dean since the day we got married.  I’ve given him every
reason to give up.”

“Trying to get him to be the one to say ‘I’m out’ and be the
bad guy.”

“I’ve had three full-on affairs during the course of our
marriage.  I don’t think anyone will see Dean as the bad guy.”

“You don’t have much respect for him.”

“No I don’t.”

“Because he loves you?”

“He needs me more than he loves me.  He sucks the life out of
me.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with the saying about not
wanting to belong to a club that would have you as a member.”

“Rebecca has said that.  My therapist.”

“What does Rebecca think of your relationship with Brian?”

“She doesn’t make predictions.”

“What do you think about the fact that he cheated on his wife?”

“Who am I to judge?”

“Did he have affairs before you?”

“Yes, but again...”

“Fine, but knowing what you know, are you someone you would
want to date?”

“Probably not.”

“So what makes him any different?  It might be the case that
the two of you happened to be two of the very few who were justified in
cheating and by some miracle happened to find each other, but the greater
likelihood is that this has very little to do with your ex spouses and even
less to do with your relationship with each other.”

“How can you say that? You don’t know anything about our
relationship.”

“I know it sounds clouded by urgency.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means there is always a reason you have to be apart and
time is always running out when you’re together.  When you would secretly meet
in hotel rooms, you would both have to go home in the morning.  Now, when you
visit for the weekend, someone always needs to return home.  You have very
little idea about what it’s like to be together without circumstances pulling
you apart.”

“So you think I am going down the wrong road with this?”

“I think you are a walking red herring.  You look like a
thoroughbred who puts on a really good show, but really you’re an abused young
girl who has been pounded with reasons for insecurity.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I think the road you should be on is the one about yourself.”

“That’s what Rebecca says.”

“Perhaps you should start listening to her, but then where’s
the excitement in that?”

She looked over with her brown eyes, asking if her feelings
should be hurt.

“Please tell me you’re not making fun of me.”

“I assure you I am not.”

“I’m already feeling like an ass for telling you all this.”

“You have my word.”

“But still you think I’m horrible for ruining my family.”

“I would never make that call, but I do think you get a rush
from the whole thing, maybe something you use to find in sports.”

“Well, if I did, it’s past.”

“I have a question.  You have two children, daughters no less. 
Why not stick it out long enough to get them into adulthood?  After all,
doesn’t their happiness take priority over yours?”

“It’s a great question and I’ve thought a lot about it.  I
guess in a sense I was going down that road, but one day it slapped me in the
face when I heard my oldest talking to Dean in the same frustrated way I must
have.  It was a real heartbreaker to hear my tone in her voice and I knew I had
to end it.”

“But yet you still wonder if you’re just being selfish?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know that I can say.”

“Well, other people don’t seem to have that problem.”

“You have bigger jobs than worrying about what other people
think of you – like making sure what happened to you doesn’t happen to your
daughters.”

“I don’t think cheating is hereditary.”

“No, but sometimes I think insecurity is.”

“You think all these things have happened just because I was
more comfortable on a basketball court than in a prom dress?”

“You’ll have to save that one for Rebecca.”

“Do you think I’ll always be unfaithful, no matter who I’m
with?”

“I hope not.”

“You’re not giving me much here.  Tell me what you’re
thinking.”

She waited, her eyes patiently pleading for anything that might
ease her guilt.

“I’m thinking you never had a chance.”

I lived in Los Angeles at a time when there was still a
distinction between New Yorkers and Los Angelenos.  Today this cultural
divergence is less obvious, as is the case with each North American
megalopolis.  I liked Los Angeles back then, before it became a daily reminder
of how lonely my life had become.  I had an apartment on the Westside, a
convertible and two favorite restaurants. One joint for breakfast, the other
for dinner, each with waitresses that knew me by my first name and occasionally
showed up at my apartment offering late-night dessert.  Like the storefronts on
a cheap B-movie set, my existence in LA was a pathetic illusion designed to
deliver the most basic needs while serving as a place to call home.  Looking
back, it was perfect for me.

It was a Thursday afternoon and I had just returned from a
three-day New York run to finish some year-end business.  Evenings in the big
city were occupied by “business dinners,” the white-collar term for excessively
spending company money to make up for the difference between what your bonus
was and what you thought it should have been.  In the most pretentious of
restaurants, I would endure testosterone-charged tales about ex-wives and
Arabian horse collections told by thick sweaty men spooning seventy-five dollar
white truffle risotto onto their cigar smoke-incapacitated palates.  I would
watch them vie for the check with their corporate cards and then thank each other
with hearty handshakes as if the money had been debited directly out of their
kids’ college funds.

There was no confusion that my dinner partners were my
opponents.  Out of personal necessity, I learned how to subdue them early with
oversized steaks and thick cabernet, leaving mentally flatfooted the morning
after.  While they retired for an early slumber, I would spend the second half
of the evening replacing their stench with the redeeming fragrance of a woman.

Over the years, I had collected a number of New York-based
“friends,” women that I would call when in town to occupy the latter part of my
evenings.  It was always at the last minute, and I always characterized it as a
special event worth prioritizing over whatever plans they had.  I would sneak in
and out of their lives, under the radar screen of their current boyfriends,
sometimes not calling for a year at a time.  We always reunited with an
excessive level of intimacy one would have thought reserved for more honest
people.  Clandestine encounters, each time was treated like it would be the
last.

This particular trip had been unsuccessful in all regards.  My
business interactions had been particularly painful and my efforts at an
intimate rendezvous fruitless.   When the town car dropped me off in front of
my Brentwood apartment building, I was ready for a long drink, a longer shower
and the long legs of a beauty with a forgiving disposition.  My apartment was
an upscale version of the hotels I counted most nights in; bleached wood
floors, stark white walls, coffee, vodka and the only three pieces of furniture
I had ever picked out myself. I threw my carry-on and briefcase into the
bedroom closet and stripped off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the
floor.  I headed into the kitchen to pour myself three fingers of Stolichnaya
into an ice-filled crystal tumbler, and proceeded into the bathroom where I
turned on the shower and climbed, drink in hand, into the black granite
cavern.  The alcohol from the inside and the water from the out, working in
perfect accord, cleansed me of my last three days and washed it away down the
polished brass drain.  With each drop of water and each sip of vodka, I began a
slow decline to the floor, coming to an eventual stop in a seated position with
the hot water hitting my back and neck.

After forty-five minutes of soaking, I threw on a pair of jeans
and a black mock turtleneck and walked the four blocks to a local pool hall
called Q’s.  I made my way to the bar and ordered a second drink from Ivan, the
bartender, who knew me by both name and beverage of choice.   For that, I
considered him a close personal friend.  Like most bartenders in LA, Ivan was
an actor whose claim, as I knew it, was a small part in a Best Picture.   In a
place like Q’s, where most actors can only hope that their earnings amount to
as much as their bar tabs, Ivan was a star.

I was keeping an eye out for Leela, a flight attendant who also
lived a few blocks away. A blend of Mexican and French, Leela was poured in
perfect proportions that resulted in dark drowning eyes, deceptively angelic
fair skin and long black radiant hair that framed her dangerously beautiful
face.  She was a seductress, adept at manipulating women into the tangles of
temptation, and very generous in using her skills to cater to my desires.  Her
targets were often younger and always comparatively innocent.  With
assassin-like precision, Leela would gain the confidence of a waif de noir and
convey an arousing interest in me, suggesting I was something better than I
was.  She did her job well, initiating little seemingly impromptu games,
betting tequila shooters on pool shots with the loser licking salt off the
winner’s neck and sucking a lime from their lips. As the evening wore on, she
would lead the intoxicated mark into competition for my favor, frequently
taking the contest artfully down to the wire.  It was a perversely distorted
symbiotic relationship that fed each of our demons, and the manipulation
excited Leela far more than the notion of consummating our own relationship.   
In the end, I would guide the victorious stranger to my bedroom, an
increasingly anticlimactic event that always came at the price of never
learning Leela’s wickedly tempting touch.  With only silent protest, I accepted
this as if it were an understood boundary between professionals.

The evening was slow as I settled into my cocktail and made
small talk with Ivan.  A couple of regulars wandered in and took their places,
ordering Corona long necks and tossing their Marlborough reds on the bar.   By
about 9:30 the room had filled with conversation, cigarette smoke and the sound
of clicking billiard balls.  I was eyeing a pair of young starlets who were
drinking whiskey sours and commiserating about a waitressing gig when Leela
entered the room with another woman.  She spotted me and without hesitation
worked her way into the bar space next to me.   She gave me a look that
suggested she was upset I had started the evening without her.   I kissed her
hello on cheek as I always did and then leaned back to allow her to make
introductions.

Her friend’s name was June, also a flight attendant.  I
wondered how much they had in common, but thought it too revealing to ask. 
June was a blond with milky white skin, naive blue eyes, and extra mascara
intended to imply she might not be as inexperienced as she otherwise appeared. 
I immediately wrote her off as an amateur, but if it mattered, would have
deferred to Leela’s good judgment.  Ivan poured them drinks and asked if we
would be looking for a table, a precious commodity on a Thursday evening.  
Leela confirmed with a nod.  With fresh drinks in hand, we left the unknowing
starlets to their own destiny and headed for the rows of pool tables on the
opposite side of the bar.  We had been playing for about an hour when a
recognizable C-list actor arrived with some hangers-on to play at the adjacent
table. It wasn’t long before he set his sights on June who cooed at his every
attention and made it readily apparent she intended to live up to the
suggestions of her mascara.  The young actor was a buyer, and soon he and June
were off to the land of make-believe in the city of broken promises.

Leela and I eyed each other, contemplating the reality that for
the first time in our relationship we were on our own.  I called in another set
of drinks and sat on the edge of the pool table.

“Now what?” I asked, poking the ice cubes to the bottom of my
glass and handing her the keys to the direction of our evening.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I paid the tab and waved goodbye to Ivan, who flashed me his
movie star smile and saluted me with two fingers off the top of his brow. 
Outside, Leela and I walked quietly, clearing our heads on the Los Angeles
evening air, north towards San Vicente and in the general direction of where we
each lived.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked her.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Where I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Well then maybe tonight’s your night.”

I guided her to my apartment and stood to the side, allowing
her to enter.

“So this is where my dark friend lives.”

“Expect a cave?”

“Something like that.”

”You’re not very big on furniture.”

I responded with a permitting smile and continued towards the
kitchen.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Do you have a glass?”

“I’ll have to check.”

Leela found her way over to the sound system and tuned in a
Spanish radio station while I fixed nightcaps.  As the music filled the room
and stirred my neighbors, she swayed back and forth with her eyes closed across
the barren floor.   I approached slowly with our drinks, stopping before I
reached her so not to interrupt the performance.

When her eyes opened, I was there, staring back and asking her
for the secrets she had never spoken.  Leela took the drinks from my hand, fed
each of us a small sip and then set them on the floor near the far wall.  She
danced her way back to me, reaching out her hands in a gesture to join in.  My
hands in hers, she pulled me close, stretching our arms apart at shoulder
height in a two person cross until our faces were close.  She then placed my
hands on her hips so that I could feel them rock back and forth to the rhythm
of the music, and together we began the slow dance into our mutual seduction. 
She unwrapped herself slowly, a brush of her pelvis, a breath on my neck and
then the warm touch of her lips to mine.  My eyes never left hers as she danced
closer and closer, taunting my demons with each swell of her chest and purse of
her lips. When finally there was no space left between us, her kiss melted into
mine and the warmth of her mouth sent fire through my limbs.

I pulled back and took her by the hand into my bedroom and
stood her against the footboard of my bed with her back to me.

“Don’t let go,” I whispered, placing her hands on the top of
the wrought iron rail and wrapping her fingers around.

I moved her dark hair to one side of her back and pulled down
the collar of her white silk blouse, exposing her neckline while running my
fingers gently down the curve of her back.  Starting just under her earlobe, I
began a long series of kisses that stretched the length of her neck and between
the ridges of her shoulder blades.  Leela reached backwards over the top of her
shoulders and pulled me against her by the back of my head. I reached up,
removed her hand and returned it to the footboard railing.

“Don’t let go.” I whispered again.

I dropped to my knees and bit into the black leather belt that
wrapped her waist, pulling it from behind so that she could feel the tugging on
the front of her waist.  My hands trailed along her taut legs, stopping at her
ankles and griping tightly as I untucked her shirttails with my teeth and
licked the base of her back, evaporating the remnants of my saliva with the
heat of my breath.   I could hear her draw short gasps of air, feel her arching
her back and shuddering with pleasure.   I reached around her torso, unhooked
her belt and each of the metal buttons.   Her pants open but still in place, I
continued to caress her at the base of her spine while I ran my fingers on the
inside elastic edge of the black lace lingerie inside her jeans.  Leela turned
quickly, reached down and grabbed me with both hands by the side of the face. 
I rose to her pull and she met me halfway with a deep insatiable kiss.

She walked me to the side of my bed and pulled me down on top
of her.  She was warmer and softer than I had ever thought possible on all the
nights she had so artfully guided another into my arms. I had imagined her to
be harder with more of a dangerous edge, but it wasn’t like that at all. 
Instead, this beautiful and unexpected angel flew to me veiled by a midnight
cloud and for an evening wrapped me in the safety of her touch.   In a blur of
sensations, I tasted her lips, was deafened by her sighs, and with each piece
of dismantled attire, felt the silk of her skin.  Black and white flashes of
ecstasy blinded me and I was washed away in her tidal wave of abandon.

Afterwards we lay in my bed, the moonlight trailing through the
blinds and across her naked tan body that looked almost gray against the
whiteness of my sheets.  Her long dark hair draped across my pillow and her
chest moved up and down with each of her peaceful breaths that reassured me
that she was really there.  I thought the moment could not be any more
beautiful, and uncharacteristically I found myself wanting to stay.  As
unexpected as her surrender, in the most intimate of undeserved gestures, Leela
began to sing while running her fingers through my hair.  More a whisper than a
song, the combination of her words and her touch spun me into a dream.

“Where are you?” Leela asked when her song was over.

“Right here.”

I thanked her for the song with a kiss on the cheek.

“You are so beautiful.”

“You’re intoxicated.”

“What took you so long?”

“I like to pick my moments.”

“I’d say that was quite a moment.”

“Now you can fly away.”

I smiled but wished she had said anything else.

“Sing me another song.”

“Sorry, one song per customer.”

“What about dances?” I asked.

“That was your dance.”